


celestial hyerogliphs

by Marenke



Series: whumptober 2020 [20]
Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo, The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Alina Starkov is Still a Sun Summoner, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Whumptober, Whumptober 2020, you'll take sun summoner alina from my cold dead hands leigh bardugo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:42:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26763778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marenke/pseuds/Marenke
Summary: It's been a while since Inej last stepped in Ravka, which is why, she tells herself, she is lost in a forest.
Series: whumptober 2020 [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1931353
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	celestial hyerogliphs

**Author's Note:**

> whumptober day 20, prompt: lost  
> this is what your brain looks like on lethal amounts of reading fairytale wikipedia entries at 3 in the morning. anyway did anyone else spend the entire duology wondering how inej would react to alina or am i just weird

It’s been a while since Inej last stepped in Ravka, which is why, she tells herself, she is lost in a forest. At least she could still recognize edible mushrooms and the ones that would kill her.

Inej should’ve grabbed a map, but no, she had sworn her memory wouldn’t fail her. She sat down on a tree root, sighing, the weight of her knives familiar against her skin. She recited their names like a prayer, a chain sequence that calmed her nerves.

It was fine, really. All Inej had to do was either get out of the forest before it became dark, or to find a place to hide for the night. Both were doable, although Inej would probably have to commit to the second option: darkness was approaching while she stood still, thinking, the shadows deepening around her. She rose up from her spot on the ground, dusted herself, and kept walking, almost aimlessly, feeling what little sun still peaked through the leaves above her head warm her. 

“Are you lost?” Called a calm voice behind her, and Inej looked in the direction the voice had come from. It was a mirage, most probably: a girl, tiny and dressed in white and gold, hair as white as her kefta.

Inej squinted her eyes at it: a kefta in white? Maybe it was a costume, like Nina’s, or some hyper-specific regional clothes that looked like one. Inej wasn’t sure: she and her family may have traveled all over Ravka, but it didn’t mean Inej was any sort of expert in clothes and their every regional variation. After a while, every spectator looked the same, a distant mass from above.

The girl looked at her, waiting for an answer, and Inej gave her a polite smile. The girl held a lamp in her hands, and the light it emitted did not produce any sort of smell, pure and white.

Everything with this mysterious stranger was white. How curious. How familiar.

“Ah, yes. I’m afraid so. Do you know the way out?” The girl nodded. She looked around Inej’s age, probably. 

The girl nodded. 

“I do.” A smile, small and quiet, almost melancholic. “Follow me.” 

Inej looked at the girl, felt the weight of her knives. After all she’d been through, it felt foolish to believe a stranger, especially one in the woods who seemed vaguely ethereal, but she wasn’t a child anymore. Inej knew how to defend herself now.

“Lead the way.” She said, and the girl said nothing, gently walking with Inej on a seemingly meaningless route, where Inej was pretty sure she had passed by twice or thrice - all trees looked the same in the half-light. “I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name. I’m Inej.”

“Alina.” She said, walking lightly on the forest floor. Inej cocked her head at that.

“Like the saint?”

A chuckle from the girl, who couldn’t be a year or two older than Inej herself.

“Yes, just like the saint.” Alina hummed in answer, and silence fell between them, only the gentle crunch of leaves being stepped on filling the silence. “What brings you this far? Your words got a bit of accent.”

Her words were light, but they had an edge, gently probing Inej for answers. Perhaps she was afraid Inej was some sort of foreign spy deeply entrenched in Ravka.

A fair fear, to be honest; Ravka seemed to have enemies all around it.

“I’ve spent a few years in Ketterdam.” Inej replied. She looked at the girl, and if Inej squinted enough she could see a halo around the girl’s head. “You know, I saw saint Alina once.”

A slight tensing of the shoulders from the girl.

“Did you?”

“Yes, from far away.” Inej shrugged, eyes focused on Alina. There was something suspicious about her. “Just a blur of white, really. But I remember she looked so… Ethereal, I think.”

It was a bluff: all Inej had ever seen of saint Alina was roadside paintings, pieces of bone and beautiful sculptures. 

“Really?” The girl hummed, and Inej was almost certain the light in the girl’s hands wavered, her step faster than before, as if itching to get rid of Inej.

Could it be that…? But no, it couldn’t be. Saint Alina had died when she killed the Darkling, and their corpses had been burned together. There was no way they had faked her death. Right? If so, the entire basis for Inej’s faith would be shaken, her rituals meaningless - what was the point of praying, if the saints were alive, hearing your thoughts, and doing nothing?

She dry gulped.

“Yes, really.” Inej looked at the back of Alina’s (maybe she should call her saint Alina, just in case?) head, and the girl did not look back. “Such a shame she was martyrized. I would’ve liked to meet her”

“I suppose.” Alina’s voice had a slight tremble to it. “If she lived, I suppose her life wouldn’t have been pleasant. All those dreadful pleasantries and politics she’d been involved with, had she lived. Weren’t the people already calling her Sol Koroleva, already expecting her to be queen?”

Maybe saint Alina didn’t want to be known as alive for a reason, and Inej supposed that hanging out in forests was better than being someone’s pawn.

The knife in her arm felt heavy, foreboding, as if pulling itself toward its namesake.

If this girl was truly saint Alina, then who was Inej to let go of the trust she put in her?

“You’re right, perhaps.” Inej conceded, and silence fell between them.

The forest slowly thinned out around the two, the girl’s light traveling further and further as the darkness seeped deeper.

At the forest’s edge, Alina hesitated to leave the darkness, as if it was some sort of comfort. Inej looked at her, memorized her features in her mind until it seemed burned in.

“Thank you, saint Alina.” Inej murmured, and Alina blinked quickly, before offering a smile as bright as the light she produced. “I won’t breathe a word.”

“No, Inej. Thank you.” Alina did not wait for an answer: she went back to the depths of the forest, and Inej watched her go until the light was a far away dot, as distant as the saints in a church ceiling.


End file.
